There's a lot to like in Stray Dog Theatre's production of "Funny Girl". Lindsey Jones, playing Fannie Brice, who became a Ziegfield and then radio star, sounds fabulous. Brice's husband (her second, a fact omitted in the show), Nicky Arnstein, is Jeffrey Wright, properly swainish and swinish by turns and showing a real gift for physical comedy in a seduction scene. Fanny's mother's poker-playing friends are a delight as a Greek chorus of worries and general yentas. (One of them in the original Broadway show was Jean Stapleton, who, of course, went on to become Edith Bunker.) And the small-but-mighty house band is a pleasure.
Jones after a while even manages to make us forget that this Jule Styne score virtually belongs to Barbara Streisand, who created the role on Broadway and in the film. That's pretty impressive. But here the Brice character is played like a middle-aged woman, sharp in her vocation but deeply naive in her personal life, all the way through the show, which spans the time from her late teens until her divorce from Arnstein, which in real life happened when she was around 36. It's disconcerting. She and Wright/Arnstein never seem to really smolder. Perhaps that's a deliberate decision to make us question Arnstein's motives from the start.
The Ziegfield chorus girls and boys display Zachary Stefaniak's choreography well. The costumes, from director Gary Bell doing double duty, fit the era well, although this wasn't a period of remarkable beauty to the modern eye – nevertheless, they're fun, especially the Ziegfield wedding scene. Florenz Ziegfield, Michael Monsey, is another watchable character, less tyrant-like than folklore would have him.
"Funny Girl" is another of those mid-60's musicals that we're just starting to appreciate, and here's a chance to find out why.
Funny Girl
through August 9
Stray Dog Theatre
Tower Grove Abbey
2336 Tennessee Ave.